Category Archives: Real Estate

“Thank you everyone who replied to me the other day when I posted that I was in urgent need of an apartment for June 1st. I was overwhelmed by the number of responses I received, and touched at all the offers of support. I have found an apartment!

“Thank you Front Porch Forum, Montpelier, and Vermont in general for being so neighborly and supportive! This is what makes Vermont a great place to live :).”

… the Spektors were overwhelmed by the prospect of trying to distinguish among the hundreds of commuter towns surrounding New York. So they turned to Suburban Jungle Realty Group, a personal relocation firm that works one-on-one with city dwellers looking to move to the “right” suburb…

Though novel in its business model, Suburban Jungle is part of a controversial industry trend that caters to home buyers who have both the desire and the ability to cherry-pick their surroundings. Other real estate websites are supplying home buyers with loads of hyper-specific community data, including racial makeup, percent of married households and education level…

Want to find a “family-friendly” community within 20 miles of Boston with a high Asian population, a low poverty rate and a median home value of $400,000? On NeighborhoodScout.com, you can plug in these preferences (and many more) on the subscription-only “Advanced Search” page and get a ranked list of options…

This trend raises some thorny questions. The growing accessibility of highly detailed demographic data plays into the natural tendency of home buyers to look for “people like us,” which is as old as the subdivided hills…

Bill Bishop, a Texas journalist and the author of “The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart” (Houghton Mifflin, 2008), argues that this tribalism is a major driver of the country’s deepening political polarization. Over the last 30 years, he says, greater mobility, laws enforcing racial equity and prosperity have given Americans even more choice about where to live. Will Internet-enhanced abilities to scout out communities intensify that sorting effect?

Front Porch Forum works in a different direction. People use FPF to connect with their existing neighbors, despite their differences. A 2013 survey found that 60% of recent FPF posters had met multiple neighbors due to their local Front Porch Forum. This isn’t an accident. We created FPF to counter the problems outlined in “The Big Sort” and Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone.” More from the Times article…

… the growing accessibility of so much demographic data has the potential to fuel the segregation that is already increasing along a number of lines — economically, racially, ideologically. Mr. Bishop, the author of “The Big Sort,” argues that as other forms of community have gone away or weakened, Americans are increasingly reordering themselves around shared values and areas of interest. “Given a choice,” he said, “people choose to segregate themselves into these places where they can surround themselves with people like themselves.”

This self-segregating boosts people’s sense of well-being by satisfying the need to belong, says Mr. Motyl, who studies ideological migration. But the resulting decrease in contact with anyone who thinks differently serves to heighten partisanship. “It allows us to become more extreme in our own ideas,” Mr. Motyl said, “and is one explanation for why our system has become so gridlocked.”

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#BTV #VT – Just want to give a big thanks to the Front Porch Forum. After less than a week after we posted our investment property for sale on here we are under contract… and we hadn’t even formally listed it yet!!

Over the years we have found all our tenants through you. We leave this part of our lives with a big thanks for all the wonderful people you’ve helped us meet, and for how much easier you’ve made our lives.

Posted to an FPF in Burlington today by Mark and Kandy.

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#VT – Sadly, I will soon be selling my large house in the village. I very much want to stay right here. If you are selling, or know of anybody who is or might be selling a small (2 bedroom?) house or condo in Richmond Village, please contact me. Thank you.”

Posted by Joanna on the Richmond Front Porch Forum. The next day, she received from Christy…

Hi Joanna – We have a 2 bedroom townhouse that we love, but that we will eventually outgrow. We’ve been looking for homes in the village… we’d love to stay here. Have you already sold your house?

Joanna shared with us just today…

I am thrilled to report that, two months after my initial FPF posting, I purchased the townhouse and Christy and her family purchased my home. Amazingly we each found the perfect home and we were able to sell our homes without ever putting them on the market. Thank you, Front Porch Forum!

There are sites and tools out there that are more directly focused on location: the online places where people talk about their physical places. Some of these are simply Facebook pages. But some are more specialized.

My favorite example is always Burlington, Vt.’s Front Porch Forum,… [which] is broken down by neighborhood. The only people talking on the list are actual neighbors. It’s super useful, but not very common.

Owning a similar social media site like this would be a strategic advantage in towns where it doesn’t already exist. It would be like a newsletter, but instead of being a social product it would be a social activity.

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How do you pitch your house when selling it? Many listings include a bit about the surrounding community. I just came across this ad for a house for sale in Huntington, VT…

Gorgeous setting close to hiking in a great community with a large Front Porch Forum presence.

That’s true! FPF has more than 730 members in Huntington, out of 760 total households in town, and they’ve shared nearly 7,000 postings among neighbors over the past few years. The good people of Huntington really know how to put FPF to great use, connecting neighbors and building community.

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Inman News columnist Gahlord Dewald posted a piece today aimed at real estate professionals about how they might make the most of social media tools. This clip caught my eye…

… If you expand beyond the “Big Three” social media platforms of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you might find very specific platforms that align with your goals. For example, in Burlington, Vt., we have an awesome forum system called Front Porch Forum. This platform is highly targeted by neighborhood and operates via (wait for it …) e-mail.

Not what you might think of when you think super-new-cool technology. But FPF is a highly valued resource in our town. About 40 percent of the local population are members (and this is a college town). The neighbors talk about the neighborhood. Pretty relevant for a real estate professional.

Spending the time to locate active social media platforms that are topic-focused — to round out your me-focused Facebook-LinkedIn-Twitter participation — is a good idea…